Va. secession soundly defeated at 1861 convention in Richmond

March 19, 2013

Editor's Note: "Countdown to Statehood" is a weekly series highlighting the historical events that eventually led to West Virginia becoming a state on June 20, 1863. This article is the 12th in the series.

In February 1861, a convention was held at Mechanics Institute in Richmond, Va., to discuss the possibility of secession. Delegates had been chosen by their individual counties, based on their political stand. Most of the delegates selected were pro-Union.

The topic was hotly contested for more than a month by the 152 convention delegates who leaned more toward a compromise than breaking with the Union. There was even hope that Virginia's actions in that regard might entice those states that had already left to return to the fold.

Southern states sent representatives to try to garner support to delay a vote they feared could be pro-Union.

Jubal Early, who later became a Confederate Civil War general, was one of the convention's staunchest Union supporters. Early said that "the enthusiasm for secession is short-sighted and likely to lead to war." Early, a Franklin County delegate, thought the voice of the southerners who did not own slaves (the majority of all southerners) were just as worthy of protection as the rights of those who do own slaves (the minority).

Attorney John Baldwin, from Staunton in the Shenandoah Valley, himself a slave owner, compared Virginia's place in the controversy to a lighthouse, and insisted that the state could withstand "the breasting and surging waves of Northern fanaticism and of Southern violence." He further thought that "the Lincoln administration does not represent an assault on Southern liberties, and even if it did, the U.S. Constitution protected them."

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Western Virginian Waitman T. Willey who hailed from Morgantown, reminded the delegates of the longstanding disparity between the rights of the eastern Virginia slave owners and those in the westerners who tended to not have slaves.

The pro-secessionist factions brought protestors to the city to garner support for their side. Former Virginia Governor Henry Wise, a radical secessionist, led the charge to delay the vote until they could strong-arm some more delegates.

When the vote was finally held on April 4, 1861, the ordinance of secession was soundly defeated by the vote of 90 against and 45 for. When the vote was announced, staunch Whig John Jenney cheered. He insisted that "the secessionists are now without the slightest hope of success!"

On April 15, 1861, President Lincoln called on states to furnish 75,000 troops. Included in that quota were 2,340 requested from Virginia to be accepted at Gordonsville, Wheeling and Staunton.

Here is Virginia Gov. John Letcher's response to the order.

Executive Department, Richmond, Va., April 15, 1861.

Hon. Simon Cameron, Secretary of War: Sir: I have received your telegram of the 15th, the genuineness of which I doubted. Since that time I have received your communications mailed the same day, in which I am requested to detach from the militia of the State of Virginia "the quota assigned in a table," which you append, "to serve as infantry or rifleman for the period of three months, unless sooner discharged." In reply to this communication, I have only to say that the militia of Virginia will not be furnished to the powers at Washington for any such use or purpose as they have in view. Your object is to subjugate the Southern States, and a requisition made upon me for such an object - an object, in my judgment, not within the purview of the Constitution or the act of 1795 - will not be complied with. You have chosen to inaugurate civil war, and, having done so, we will meet it in a spirit as determined as the administration has exhibited toward the South.